Active Astrology is well know all over the world,
thanks mainly to my previous books in English
(http://www.cirodiscepolo.it/english_corner/English_corner.htm),
together with several other works published in Italian, English, French,
German, Spanish, Hungarian, Slovenian, and Russian.

Many of my readers have urged me to have this volume
published in English. Unlike other works of mine, this volume does not
explain how to ‘aim’ the relocation of a map of Solar Return: it rather
tells you what to do if you can not leave for an aimed birthday and you
wish to make use of the technique that I called ‘exorcism of the symbol’
– or more properly said: ‘exorcization of the symbol’.
I trust that you can find good, practical, and useful
pieces of advice in these pages.

This volume contains also certain chapters similar to
(but not the same as) a previous book of mine titled Astrologia
Attiva. Here I’ve added several chapters and I’ve revised and
expanded other sections.
As a support to the explained theory, I have also
added some astrological portraits of universally known historical
personalities such as Giacomo Casanova, Luigi Pirandello, and Ernest
Hemingway.

Before you start browsing this volume, I would like
to remind you that you can always join my blog (http://cirodiscepolo.blogspot.com/)
with queries or comments in English or in the Italian language. There
you’ll actually find a sort of an ‘extended family’ made up of my
passionate followers, colleagues, pupils or people who simply are fond
of Active Astrology – they will be able to help you go on and deepen
your studies of Active Astrology.

Yet another thing though. This is probably my very last book in
English, as a publisher. In future, if my readers from the States, the
United Kingdom, Canada, Australia (and so on) wish to read my works on
the rectification of the time of birth or on the dating of events within
the frame of the twelve month of a given Solar Return,
they should mention these works of mine to publishers urging their
translation into the English language. This is the only way in which
they will be able to go on reading my works in their own language.
I wish you all a fruitful pursuit in the deepening
your understanding of this wonderful topic called Active Astrology,
which is not The Truth, but it is surely Truth.

A chapter of this book:
Transits of Mars(but even Mars in
the Houses of the Solar or the Lunar Return):

TRANSITS OF MARS

You should never
underestimate them. One reason is that they can last for entire
weeks or months. Another reason is that they can be responsible for
real calamities, if they add to more intense transits. Their action
is mostly maleficent. In fact, Ancient – who didn’t know the meaning
of the world demagogy – called this planet the little malefic,
in comparison with Saturn who was considered the great malefic.
Similarly to the fever, which is always present in virtually all the
diseases of the human being, Mars and Saturn stand out in virtually
all the tragedies of the human being – in my opinion this says a lot
about the maleficence of this planet. Therefore you had better have
no illusions about it: when Mars passes over your head, at best you
can exclaim, “Thanks God, I didn’t hurt myself!” But it’s a quite
rare event. Try and test it! For in the overwhelming majority of
cases the rule is: you have always to give something to Mars,
the ruler of Aries and Scorpio. Usually, it would be wounds, tears,
rifts, lacerations, blood and so on. The nature of Mars is clearly
of a destructive kind, and this is exactly how it behaves. Only in
extremely rare cases it may play a constructive role. Usually this
happens in those situations that require determined will, and with
those natives who lack of willpower. Only in these circumstances,
when Mars transits over the native’s Sun or Ascendant or Moon, it is
possible – and only in few rare events – that the subject may become
the protagonist of a leap in which he/she takes a brave decision and
becomes able to get rid of years of stagnations and slothfulness.
Otherwise, Mars usually acts provoking tears, wreckage, destruction,
wounds, and bleeding. There’s nothing left other than testing what
I’ve just written down.

Mars in a dissonant
aspect with the Sun

When Mars creates a
disharmonic angle with the Sun – including conjunction – at a
theoretical level you should face a positive surplus of energy that
you can spend just the way you prefer. Say that you can rely on a
credit of energy and that you feel as strong as never before,
whishing to employ this benefit somehow. So you leave home and you
see a poor man lying on the street under his own motor bicycle. He’s
unable to stand up, so you may help him. By doing so, not only you
would do your daily good deed, as any member of the Junior Woodchucks should do
– you would also make a good use of that bonus on which you can
rely. With a less imaginative example, say that you can rely on it
for bearing – better than usual – the whims of your chief clerk
early in the morning. You may even dare to give him/her a sharp
answer, and then prepare for enjoying the usual calm for the rest of
the day. On the other hand, if this transit of Mars adds to other
dissonant positions in your natal chart and it also forms part of a
bad Solar Return and Lunar Return, you run the risk of getting
involved in an explosive situation with a final ‘deflagration’. In
the given example, the final explosion may be a very bad quarrel
with your chief clerk, or with a colleague or with any other
collaborator in your job; or perhaps with the policeman giving you a
fine, and so on. In other words, on a day like today there’s a
special temperature in the air floating around you. You may get in
serious troubles with the law, or with any other thing connected
with what I call the ‘officially stamped paper’, including being in
bad terms with your partner or with your mother-in-law. Furthermore
you may also hurt yourself. This can be in a real physical meaning
of the term, i.e. you may cut while shaving; you may wound while
dismounting a flat tyre; you may be run over on a pedestrian
crossing; or when trying to open a carton box with inappropriate
cutting tools.

It is the least apt
moment for urging a rise in salary. It is not the moment for trying
to win over a superior, trying to behave friendly with him or her.
On the contrary, you should try and exorcize this transit by
performing hard but not dangerous tasks. For example it may be a
very good idea to chop wood; to move pieces of furniture from one
floor to another; to empty shelves and arrange the books into carton
boxes; to rearrange things in your attic or in your cupboard; to
arrange the folders at office… It is also a very good day for making
sports, provided that it is not something dangerous. For example
jogging, trekking, marathons on the ground and on the water... Also
going to the dentist would suit, as well as any other sort of
operation such as incisions, removal of cysts, birthmarks, tonsils,
etc. If you have to undergo a clinical examination under effort,
such as certain heart exams, this is the best day to do so. At most,
I may say that any surgical operation is welcome during this
transit, provided that you obey all the other rules given in my
volume Astrologia applicata by ed. Armenia. The most
important of those rules says that you should never undergo an
intervention when the Moon is in the sign corresponding to the organ
to be operated. For example, do not have your throat operated when
the Moon is in Taurus. This day – or these days – may also be apt
for a good quarrel, provided that you cannot avoid it anyway. For
example, it is very apt to give somebody a piece of your mind under
the square Mars-Sun. If this Mars transiting in a bad aspect with
the Sun also creates any angle with Saturn, it is also a good moment
for making tattoos, piercing and so on, or for having them made on
your skin.

Mars in a dissonant
aspect with the Moon

In the previous section
we faced an objective situation. I mean, the source of conflict
given by Mars-Sun may or might produce a real laceration, such as
for example the wreck of a car in a traffic accident; a bone
fracture; a black eye caused by a punch; and so on. While in the
case of the transits Mars-Moon we are dealing, I may say, with a
more ethereal dimension. It’s still a form of ‘belligerence’, but
such ‘belligerence’ may remain at a stage of temper: e.g. you may
nurse a grudge against somebody or you may be in a bad mood, but you
may not express it, or perhaps you would express it but in the least
apt forms. Sometimes you feel your blood boiling, your heart
quivering with indignation, fury, and anger. You would like to
declare war to the entire world and you feel ready to burst out for
nothing. The great Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Young claimed
that the subjective reality corresponds to the objective reality.
This means that if you have war inside you, you meet war also
outside you. Under this logic, at least it is convenient to invent
real battles against anybody. If you wish to avoid war coming and
visit you, you had better start war against somebody. It may be a
neighbour, a colleague at work, a public organization, somebody who
opposes our ideas, and so on. This simply means acting according to
the Latin motto similia similibus curantur: like cures like, the fundamental healing
principle of homeopathy.
You’ll surely feel like having more ‘caffeine’ and everybody around
you feels that you are ready to jump for nothing. Now, this is
exactly the bottom line: do you wish to throw such an important
energetic potential out of the window, or do you want to make good
use of such energy by deploying it for anything that can be
extremely productive for you? You cannot always rely on such an
interesting determination. Therefore it is worth to try and look for
the correct way to invest this stamina. Before anything else, you
should direct your ‘belligerence’ against a female figure, or
against any situation connected with the house (for example,
quarrels with the neighbours). It is also a good period if you to
get a load off your chest and preach your daughter, your sister,
your mother… If you have to solve a situation by phone, you had
better start your conversation like this: “I’m warning you, this is
not a friendly call…” In other words, there’s no use in wearing
mantles of false pacifism if your blood is boiling with indignation.
So blow the trumpets and roll the drums. And if you have to shoot,
shoot… There’s moment for construction and a moment for destruction.
Well, this is the moment for destruction, so behave consequently. If
you can, you may also carry out heavy duties at home, such as
chopping wood, moving pieces of furniture, fixing the roof and so
on.

Mars in a dissonant
aspect with Mercury

Here we deal with two
different notions: on the one hand, the idea of effort (Mars) and on
the other hand, the idea of communication (travel,
telecommunication, etc.). It is possible that you should start for a
journey against your own will, if you wish to exorcize this transit.
You might cover a long-long distance while you really wished to stay
at home. Sometimes travelling is a pleasure, with a brand new and
comfortable car, and with a nice weather. But if your car is old, if
it doesn’t work fine; or if the bad weather conditions (say, cold
and lack of visibility) make the route uneven, then your journey may
become rather uncomfortable and this may be the case when you make a
sacrifice for the sake of the exorcization of this transit. So this
is a good thing to do during this transit. Furthermore, according to
the principles detailed in this volume the more you suffer in
travelling, the more you ‘discharge’ this symbol. The negativity of
the journey may also be connected with the reason of your moving
around: for example, you may have to take a close relative to
undergo a serious surgery; and in this case, in my opinion, no
further explanation is needed. Often the objective aversion towards
the journey may be caused by a specific reason which makes the
travel harder or even unbearable: for example, you may have to
travel together with your tiresome and haunting mother-in-law. In
other cases this transit may imply the repair of your car or any
other vehicle: this is another good way to exorcize this transit
properly. At another level, your journey may be only a virtual one.
From this point of view, it may be connected with communication or
telecommunication rather than a physical displacement of your body.
For example, it is pleasant to browse the Internet searching for
relaxing or – even better – for something to play with: but it may
be less amusing to navigate on the WWW in order to carry out a
precise assignment, perhaps something boring in which you can not
use your creativeness, such as a repetitive job in which you may
have – just to give an example – to delete a sequel of items from a
list, one by one. At a similar level you may try to exorcize this
transit by making efforts of fixing up your printer, your mobile
phone, or your satellite receiver by yourself, without even calling
a technician. You may play the technician yourself by installing a
satellite dish on the roof of your house. You can also invest your
strength in compliance with the symbols Mars-Mercury by dealing with
a brother, a sister, a cousin, a brother-in-law… You may have to
take care of one of them, for example. You’d attain the utmost from
this transit if you took one of these relatives to run an errand a
few hundred miles far from your own place. Last but not least, a
clever trick to leave this transit may be to embark on a huge
sacrifice and try to quit smoking; or withdrawing into a lonely room
in order to write down a report, or to study for an important exam.

Mars in a dissonant
aspect with Venus

The best way to
exorcize a transit of Mars dissonant to Venus is to have se, much
sex – you might ‘gorge yourself’ with sex. Mars is the synonym for
strength and Venus stands for love. Hence the best way to
constellate these symbols is to have much, healthy sex. This is
valid regardless of the kind of transit, i.e. opposition or
conjunction or square, it’s the same. It is also important ‘how’ you
make love. Each pair has his own fashion of making love, but he
symbolism of Mars-Venus recalls a style of making love which may be
considered a little bit ‘violent’ or ‘virile’. According to this,
during this transit it may a good thing to insert certain variation
in your way of making love. Also quantity is important – hence it
would be a useful thing to have more frequent sexual intercourses
until this transit lasts. Another way in which you can exorcize, or
constellate, this transit is to manage – provided that you are able
to do so – the creeping tension with your partner in love. This
implies having a tense relationship, but not so tense as to provoke
a real crisis. When you act following the logic of exorcising
transits, the most important thing is to keep always a good sense of
humour, which above all allow you to consider thing ‘from the
outside’, without feeling too much involved. If you follow this rule
events would hardly overcome you; if you don’t, you run the risk of
becoming yourself a victim of your own ploys. If during these days
you were able to handle a fairly argumentative relationship, this
would not harm to your love affair – on the contrary, it would
precisely benefit it. Another way of constellating this transit may
consist in helping your partner in carrying out heavy tasks. For
example, say that your wife has to empty a whole case at office in
order to allocate the files into another archive or in two-three
cases. So you had better summon all your patience and go and help
your wife even if this implies spending a couple of week-ends for
this purpose. Or vice-versa: if you have to arrange or rearrange
your tools in the garage, she should help you to do so. In a similar
attempt of keeping the situation (i.e. this transit) under control,
you may exaggerate and indulge in some sort of pleasure. For example
you may have a special dinner with your friend, say for example a
stag party, where you can indulge in intemperance and debauchery,
overeating, and so on. This way you’d act perfectly according with
the transit. Or, once in a lifetime, you may indulge in poker or any
other gambling game – but remember to set a limit before, and then
leave the game as soon as you reach the limit you had imposed to
yourself. And now for something completely different: you may do
your utmost for helping or giving assistance to a sister, a female
cousin, or a young female friend of yours – and this has nothing to
do with play and games, of course.

Mars in a dissonant
aspect with Mars

You can only
‘discharge’ this transit making use of your own brute force. You can
not mistake: you should chop wood, move pieces of furniture from one
room to another, perform heavy physical tasks, sweating, sweating,
and sweating over and over again. Any attempt of coming to terms
with the symbology of this transit is doomed to failure. Under this
transit you are bound to suffering at a physical level, so the more
you suffer the better. Let me be even more drastic and put it this
way: if you don’t sweat, you bleed. In fact, this transit may
correspond to a period in which you find yourself laying on the
dentist’s armchair, who – with a drill in his hand – gives to the
flaming ruler of Aries and Scorpio all that it wants. This is the
aptest transit for being scalpelled, drilled, flayed, bled, and so
on. You should have no doubt about it. The only thing that you
should be concerned with is the ancient yet very good rule by
Ptolemy: already in the second century before Christ, he suggested
that you should never undergo any operation when the Moon is in the
sign corresponding to the portion of body that you should heal –
Taurus corresponding to the throat, Virgo the bowels, and so on. If
you find no heavy tasks to carry out and no lesser or major
interventions to undergo (this would sound weird, after all), you
may try to exaggerate a little bit and start quarrelling with your
neighbour, with your fellow creatures, even if you don’t know them
personally. For example, with an ill-mannered deliveryman; an
unpleasant telephone operator; the impolite assistant of a medical
doctor, and so on. Instead of the heavy tasks, you may perform
mechanical tasks or work with electricity, water tubes, motors, and
so on. Another way of exorcising this transit is facing up
situations: i.e. acting so that truth will out. Say that you feel a
creeping friction in your relationship with somebody, but so far you
haven’t felt like facing up this unpleasant situation with him/her
because if you did so, you would have an unfriendly and disagreeable
confrontation, while your nature is of a pacifist kind. But you
know: there’s a time for peace and there’s a time for war – and this
transit marks undoubtedly a time for war.

Mars in a dissonant
aspect with Jupiter

In this period you tend
to hypertrophy and you suffer from a scarce critical sense. Your
superficiality would grow consequently and you underestimate the
difficulties that you have to face. Under these circumstances,
prudent people would remain alone at home, doing their best to do…
nothing at all. But if you did so, what would you give to Mars?
Similarly to other cases, also in this case making sports may help.
For example, archery would show you – and not only figuratively –
how many times you can hit the bull’s eye. Under this transit
something interesting happened to a friend of mine. It was during
our mid-August holidays, and the event took place in one of those
tourist villages in which they just organized a swimming
competition. My friend took a deep breath, jumped into the water and
started swimming. He was convinced to be the first but when he
eventually emerged and opened his eyes, he sadly realized that
everybody was before him, and that he was actually behind everybody
else. This is exactly what may happen to everybody during this
transit – and also losing your face in a sporting competition may
help you exorcise the symbol of the transit. Otherwise you can
pamper yourself with a period of controlled intemperance, such as
overeating with friends, yet without ever exceeding beyond the
limits imposed by decency and by rational logic. You may also
indulge in little crazy expenses; for example you may resolve to buy
some new garment, and in this case you’d reduce the risk to the
chance of paying 100 what really costs 70. In these days you may
also donate your blood: it would be a wise and socially useful thing
to do. And by doing so, you’d know if your blood is OK or perhaps
something may be wrong in it, especially in connection with the
liver, and do something to avoid further troubles. And last, you may
renounce to a little but fix amount of your budget and devote it to
losing it in gambling games.

Mars in a dissonant
aspect with Saturn

During these days or
months you feel nastier and perhaps you really are nastier, in so
far that you natal chart allows you to be a bad boy or a bad girl.
During this transit you should take those decisions that you
normally are unable, or refuse to take. For example you may resolve
to take your aged mother to a retirement home or to an old people’s
home, although this is something that anybody would hate. Yet it is
something that you have to do under certain circumstances.
Nonetheless this is life: there are days for enjoying and there are
days for suffering. And there are days of gathering consent and
other days in which people consider you to be a fierce torturer. And
this is exactly the case of this transit. So if there isn’t any
other possible solution, you should sacrifice this sort of lamb on
the altar of Mars-Saturn: taking one of your dear old ones to the
old people’s home; parting from a dog cub or a pussy cat that you
could not keep at home so that you have got to give it away; taking
your dear suffering pet to the vet to have it suppressed – an act of
mercy that, in my opinion, should also be allowed for those men and
women who are suffering in the terminal stages of their illness.
That cold SS torturer who sleeps within each individual – more or
less depending on each natal chart – comes out during this transit
and reclaims his right to existence. Hence, this period is apt for
certain particularly delicate surgical operations, such as acting
yourself as a doctor and give rescue to somebody who needs help
because, say, his or her leg is broken, while you are waiting for a
professional assistance to arrive. On the altar of this transit you
may also wish to offer a surgical intervention on your own body: it
may be the meniscus, the knees in general, orthopaedic surgery, and
above all – the dentist. Dentist-related suffering, their curing on
the base of drilling, the laceration of the gums, their stitching
up: all they are operations typically connected with the dissonance
Mars-Saturn. The same can be told for demolitions. For example, if
you have to demolish anything build without a planning permission,
an unsteady external wall, or a former shelter for your dog and so
on; but it also refers to the scrapping of cars and motor bicycles.
And last if you have something unpleasant to tell to anybody, for
example an unfriendly telephone call, declaring any sort of war etc.
this is the right moment to do so.

Mars in a dissonant
aspect with Uranus

This transit implies a
sort of destructive or radically proactive energy tending to solve
problems. Spurts of adrenaline seem to make all of your action
‘sparkle’. You feel absolutely unsatisfied before anything that
takes a longer time to evolve or develop. In fact during this
transit you may become impatient, particularly with people who
‘work’ slower than you, or who don’t understand what you say. You
tend to go straight to the core of any situation; during these days
you are as loyal, sincere, and genuine as ever. You had better take
advantage of this situation and bang the table with your fist: for
if there are days for mediating, it is also true that there are
other days for making war. Everybody has got situations that need to
be removed radically, without any wavering, after sought, or
weakness. This transit marks exactly this kind of ‘bus stop’ in your
life. So you had better summon all your bravery and make a clean-up.
So get rid of old and useless ‘friends’ and any sort of dead weight,
including your own mental ballast. Hold your nose and wear brand new
garments. Get rid of your old taboos, obsessive manias, little fears
of your being ‘a very little man’, and take a deep breath of fresh
air even if this might cause you wounds. You’ll have time to put in
stitches to your lacerations later on. So the best way to discharge
this sort of transit is to humour your nature of these days. And
your nature of these days is, more or less, coherent with your basic
nature. During these days or weeks you should make efforts to be as
natural as possible, even in those occasions in which being natural
means being brave. At any cost you should avoid any activity usually
considered dangerous, such as riding bicycles and motor bicycles;
skating; skiing; driving at high speed; climbing mountains; diving
from high cliffs, and so on. Nonetheless, we have to give something
to Mars and Uranus. So you also had better try to go in for brave
yet not really dangerous sport such as the kitesurfing. This is also
a good moment if you have to undergo a little surgical operation
with minimal sedation or anxiolysis. You will be also attracted by
techniques and informatics; you may take advantage of this by
opening the case of your desktop computer – although the successful
result may not be guaranteed. This transit is also good if you have,
for example, to support a relative of yours in a ‘quarrel’, for
example against his/her neighbours.

Mars in a dissonant
aspect with Neptune

During the transit of
Mars on a dissonant angle with Neptune (including conjunction) you
feel a sort of ‘mental blindness’. This means that you tend to
exaggerate a notion, an ideal, a point of view, a professional
practice. The dangerousness of the transit we are talking about is
totally inscribed in this sort of ‘altered state of consciousness’.
This leads you to behave in a way that you usually wouldn’t do –
unless you have already got this aspect in your very natal chart.
Those who are in a leading position of nations, countries, armies,
mass movements and so on, they should be careful not to take any
important decision during this transit, because otherwise their
highly subjective decisions might provoke some sort of ‘holy war’,
or ‘one-way fanaticism’. So this transit is not something that can
be solved with some Valium or valeriana or any other
anxiolytics to be taken in homeopathic doses. So what I am
suggesting you to exorcize this transit is to find out some specific
situation in which you may behave so blindly without being too
harmful to yourself and to the others. There you could take those
unique, final, extreme decisions – just like if it were the last
thing you would do. For example, you may declare your resolution of
quitting smoking; you may lie in bed with sedating infusions to
detoxify from morphine; or you may resolve seriously to embark on a
slimming cure – under the spur of this transit, all these things
would lead you to exceptional results. The same if you are a victim
of alcoholism or drug. At another level, you may resolve to run ten
miles a day; to join a gym; to do a minimum daily quantity of
push-ups. In a word, this is the season of the statements of
compromise, in which you are also able to fulfil them. All of your
proposals of the kind “from today onwards…” taken during this
transit are bound to lead to firm and constructive actions. During
these days no one can stop you: so you had better take advantage of
this and jump over any sort of gap – geographical, social, or
political ones. If your heart quivers with indignation for anything,
for example, you may resolve to join a political party or a mass
movement. Take part in environmental campaigns, for example you may
join a group of volunteers cleaning up the parks and the hills of
your town; or you may even take part in some ‘extreme’ actions
performed y environmentalists, green activists and so on. For
example you may have yourself enchained to the gates of the embassy
of a country in which experimental nuclear explosions are carried
out. If you have an important surgical intervention to do, or even a
mere extraction of the wisdom tooth, well this is the right time to
be brave and undergo any sort of torture. And if you feel so brave
to take the consequences of this transit to the extremes, you may
try to walk barefoot on burning coals, like certain fakirs do. And
last, this is a good period for studying astrology, esotericism,
parapsychology, Eastern cultures, yoga and so on.

Mars in a dissonant
aspect with Pluto

When the worst and
deepest energies inside you tend to emerge to the surface, you
should try to channel them and keep them under strict control. I can
imagine that even psychology would agree with astrology in
suggesting you to go to the cinema and watch some film like Death
Wish. I’m sure that it has happened to you too, to find yourself
in a metro coach in the presence of a gang, a group of
hooligans, drifters behaving in a clearly criminal way. You know,
those dropouts that start singing in chorus obscene songs; but they
go further and beat the passengers, spit on them, perhaps they even
rob them. In moments like this, the civilized part of you (the Dr.
Jekyll) feels uncomfortable, but at most it switches on the mobile
phone and calls the police. But during a dissonant transit of Mars
with Pluto – including conjunction – the other half of you, the Mr.
Hyde emerges and you’d like to shoot with a Magnum or any
other gun, just like the cops in the American films. This is why I
suggest you to go to the cinema and watch that film with Charles
Bronson shooting at the head of hooligans. This is certainly not a
masterpiece of culture, but by watching this sort of films you could
sublimate all of your destructive strength. It would be him, the
killing vigilante who does the real thing – not you. So you’d be
happy that the crime rate is dropping and that somebody is doing
something about crime, but you won’t pay the consequences of your
imaginary self-made justice. Somebody, of those who love demagogy,
would claim that violence is violence in any case, and that violence
produces violence. But I don’t believe in allopathy, I prefer
homeopathy – similia similibus curantur: like cures like. On
the other hand I am suggesting this to adult people who are supposed
to be perfectly able to discriminate between reality and invention
while watching films like Pulp Fiction. During this transit
also your sexual impulse might improve not only in quantity but also
in quality; and you may be led to do something ‘weird’, strange,
morbid. And if you partner agreed, you’d be able to have unusual
experiences in this field. Since this transit also implies a wave of
wrath, you may channel it to spoil the friendship between you and
somebody that you don’t like anymore; or to give a sharp answer to
your boss; perhaps to resign after a quarrel. There are days for
constructions and days for destruction: these are the days for
demolition.

Transit Mars in the
First House

This transit takes
place approximately every two years. It usually last a couple of
months. Keep in mind though, that if the planet becomes retrograde
and then it reverts to direct motion again, this transit might last
five or six months. This transit gives you an extraordinary stamina;
you can behave like if you had taken dozens of cups of coffee; you
feel like moving without gravity, like if you were walking on the
Moon. Of course such a surplus of energy must be channelled
carefully; otherwise it can provoke real disasters. Those who
generally lack of a strong willpower may feel the thrill of being
able to take brave decisions on the spur of the moment. On the
contrary, those whose basic nature is strong and volitional should
make use of particular tactics. My first suggestion is to go to the
dentist. I am confident that Mars would appreciate those
nightmare-like drilling, scalpelling, root lapping, and bleeding
that the dentist’s care might imply. Given that everybody has to
visit the dentist on a regular basis, you had better go there when
Mars is transiting in your 1st, 6th, or 12th House. In those periods you should also concentrate, if possible,
any other lesser or major surgical intervention: such as incisions,
haemorrhoids, removal of cysts, birthmarks, tonsils, etc. If you
really have nothing to offer from this point of view, then you had
better devote yourself to a massive sporting activity. The more you
go in for sport in this period the better you discharge this
transit, and the safer you can feel. If you don’t feel like going in
for sport, or if you aren’t accustomed to carry out physical
efforts, then proceed gradually, starting with jogging in the woods
or on the shore early in the morning. You may also devote some time
to the gym. If you are really lazy you may avoid joining a gym club
and do it at home. You may buy a rowing machine or a stationary
bicycle, or you may simply do push-ups on the carpet. As Woody Allen
would say, you may also ‘sweat in the sheets’: i.e. an increased
sexual activity would discharge this transit very, very well. And if
you have got to move pieces of furniture; to empty shelves and
rearrange your book collection; to carry out any sort of huge, heavy
tasks – well this is the perfect time to do so. Don’t you have any
heavy task to carry out? Then create them, or help you friends and
relatives who are just moving; or help them rearrange the garage or
the attic or any other thing like this. Of course you should avoid
the most dangerous tasks such as cutting or sawing wood, otherwise
you may run the risk of wounding yourself.

Transit Mars in the
Second House

During this transit you
stand the chance of having a little but intense haemorrhage of
money. In this case it may not be enough to suggest you to be
generically careful, to keep alert. You had better try and rule over
the symbol, i.e. ‘exorcise’ it at your best, channelling it in a way
that may be even advantageous to you. To do so you should do your
utmost to increase the income of your own personal finance or of the
family budget. If possible, accept a second job. This may be a
temporary activity and it may last only until this transit lasts.
Depending on your field of expertise, you should try to make extra
money from giving consultancies, private classes, working as a
freelance translator, and so on. So buy the local papers of
classified ads and something useful will surely occur to you. For
example, you might also earn from selling an old piece of furniture.
If there’s a chance to work overtime in your company, do so as much
as you can during this transit. Perhaps you have never considered
getting into high finance and you simply spare your money by leaving
it sleeping in a current account? Well, during this transit you
might study for days, for weeks, trying a solution for earning more
by investing your money in something more productive yet safe; for
example you may buy a state bond or transfer your money to another
account granting a higher rate of interest. Or on the contrary, if
you have to make expenses and you cannot avoid it, then spend your
money exactly during this transit. Buy anything – tools, garment,
whatever – provided that meets somehow the symbols implied in this
transit. Remember that if you don’t do so, you run the risk of
losing that money anyway – for example you might be robbed. At
another level you had better enhance your physical aspect: so go to
the hairstylist, to the barber, to cosmetologists, beauticians,
tailors, and whomever can help you improve your looking. Another
valid way of exorcising this symbol may be having a little incision
made on your body: e.g. to remove a birthmark or a cyst or any other
blemish on your skin. You may also invest more time than usual in
visiting shops in search for better pieces of garment. This can also
apply to any tools connected with the notion of ‘image’. Thus you
may learn to use a complex software of CAD; study photography; buy a
larger monitor, and so on.

Transit Mars in the
Third House

During this transit it
is a wise thing to become a commuter, or if you already are,
increase your daily commuting. This may be connected with an actual
need or a changed situation, such as taking your kids to a farther
school or your assignment to another branch of your company - but
you might also be able to create such a situation of commuting
deliberately. In the latter case you may grasp many different
occasions. for example you may resolve to assist a course on Shiatsu
at the other end of the town; join a gym club far from home; meet a
group of friends after work; and so on. The bottom line is: let it
be a larger commuting, a longer way to pass every day. The same if
you make it by foot or by car or tramway or train. Each symbol
should be ‘weighed’ in comparison with the individual who wish to
constellate it: therefore the distances involved may depend on the
natal chart of he, or she, to whom the transit refers. For example,
for a native Cancer who spends a lot of time at home, it may be
enough a distance of a few blocks; while for an extremely mobile
Gemini the distance should involve dozens, if not thousands of
miles. During this period it would be useful to spend also
resources, energy, and money to take care of your car from the
technical, mechanical and esthetical point of view: So go and visit
more often your carwash, your tyre repairer; your auto-body
repairer; your mechanic… And if you are so smart to be able to put
your own hands in your car, even better! Roll up your sleeves and
spend several hours of Saturdays and Sundays with a wrench. At
another lever, the transit may be efficiently discharged by diving
yourself into a deep study, for leisure or necessity. In the latter
case you may get ready for a contest or an exam at university. In
both cases the transit gives you the required energy. You may also
try and invest your passion in learning a new software programme;
studying o reading a book of your favourite author; you may also
take benefit in assisting courses, lessons, seminars, lectures.
Moreover, you had better intensify your communication – especially
the written ones – via Internet or telephone, although you may run
the risk of getting quite high bills if you don’t pay a flat fee. If
you are engaged at a cultural level, grasp the chance and write some
important chapter for your next book; or the text of an article, a
lecture, an essay... If you had to swallow a bitter pill because of
your brothers, sisters, brothers-in-law or sisters-in-law during
this transit you have the chance of getting it out off your chest
and giving them a piece of your mind. Last, you may take a strong
compromise and quit smoking, if you are a smoker.

Transit Mars in the
Fourth House

During this transit you
have certainly to carry out some work at home. You may do it
yourself or have it done by an expert. You may rearrange the whole
house or simply have your bathroom repainted. In any case you should
spend efforts, compromise and suffering. The discomforts caused by
coming home and finding dust and sand everywhere, up into your
sheets; or finding a lime of scuttle left on your best armchair,
they should be enough to discharge this symbol properly. If you are
smart enough in doing-it-yourself you may spend all of the week-ends
of this transit in painting walls and mounting shelves. The bottom
line is that you should channel as much stamina and money as you can
in this sort of things. These weeks or months are a favourable span
of time for you to have a new heating system mounted; or new tiles
in your bathroom; or any other lesser or major fixing or renovating
or refurbishing job that your place may need from time to time. The
same may also refer to you office, your workshop, your atelier, your
shop, your laboratory, your working space whatever it is. The notion
of making efforts aimed at your home or house may also refer to a
different layout of the furniture, which may be achieved by physical
tasks; or simply mounting news curtains, which is a much lighter
job. Gardening may also attain to the symbology we are talking
about. You may constellate it also by applying for a mortgage loan
and start paying instalments for the purchase of a flat. More
precisely speaking, this implies all those direct and indirect
expenses relevant to your house or flat, including insurance or the
payment of inheritance tax which you may deliberately try to
postpone or anticipate so that it takes places exactly during this
transit. Furthermore it would be a good thing to deal more with your
parents, to take more care for them: go and visit them more often;
take them with you on holiday; assist them in a therapy; take them
to hospital if they need it, and so on. I can say that this transit
can be discharged quite fairly by upgrading the hard-disk of your
personal computer. This seems to be an easy task, but it may be
difficult even for an expert technician and it often implies days of
reinstalling your favourite software, applications, drivers etc. one
by one. But if you do so you may avoid the bad surprise of having
your computer infected by a virus, which in certain cases can be
solved only by reformatting all of your drives.

Transit Mars in the
Fifth House

The ideal would be to
sport – to sport very much. If you are already a sportsman or a
sportswoman you may simply intensify your activity. If you are not,
you had better move somehow: play tennis, dive, swim, and run, make
gymnastic at home or in a gym club. Sports are surely the right
activity to discharge this transit in the best way. Yet the Fifth
House also refers to anything that may be defined playful and
recreational – so dance may be suitable as wall, since it is a sort
of ‘sport’ that one can perform at any age, it is only good for
blood circulation, provided that you don’t exaggerate – and by the
way, exaggerating hurts whatever you do. The 5th House of
the natal chart also refers to love. So in order to tame the
transiting Mart claiming for its rights, you can also have a more
intense sexual activity, or simply meet you partner more frequently.
And remember: if you don’t discharge this transit you run the risk
of falling into temptation and start frequenting quire dangerous
places such as casinos, where the harmful suggestions of the rules
of Aries and Scorpio might lead you to spend and losse quite
consistent amounts of money. While if you guide this Mars at your
best, it may lead you to learn a new sporting activity, such as
bridge or chess – you can sweat and loose weight also by playing
bridge or chess. These months favour also the practice of teaching.
So if you are a teacher or if you are asked to do a seminar, you
should try and concentrate it during this transit. You should also
make more efforts in connection with your beloved ones, your
partner, you kids: for example, for their medicines, for their
spirit. Try and demonstrate in a tangible way how much you care for
them. This is also a good time for going to holiday in one of those
resorts where the animators don’t leave you in peace but make you
work even harder than you normally do at work.

Transit Mars in the
Sixth House

With this transit, it’s
a matter of warding off a stronger blow. Whether it expresses itself
in your job (i.e. in your relationship within your working
environment) or in your health, this is a rather treacherous
transit. In the first case, you had better give it vent by giving a
piece of your mind to, say, a colleague whom you can’t stand any
longer. If you have to quarrel, this is the aptest moment. Certain
interpersonal rapports in your working environment can last up to
certain point – not forever. At most, during these days you can try
and accept harder physical tasks: for example, reallocate the files
from one case to another; move huge bulks of heavy folders;
do-it-yourself and move pieces of furniture even if those tasks do
not fall within your competence. As far as health is concerned, the
dentist is always the best solution: as much ‘drilling’ as possible
and you’ll avoid more serious troubles. So visit the dentist as
often as possible and ask him to undergo a deep cleaning of your
teeth, implying the cutting of your gum and a profound removal of
the tartar (this technique is called root lapping). If you are a
woman, you may find benefit in an extra visit to the gynaecologist,
who might find out some little wound to be cicatrized with an
electrosurgical knife. Everybody would find benefit also in
chiropractic: hands up those who haven’t got any little pain in the
bones… Nonetheless, with a transit like this – which in certain
cases may last up to several months – one cannot underestimate the
problem. So it would be a wise thing to put into effect all those
things that I have gathered under the term of ‘a prosthetic
technique’ in another section of this volume. In other words, during
this transit it would not be enough to simply act according to the
homeopathic principle similia similibus curantur – before
anything else you should prevent, and only then combat using certain
opposites. I give a few examples. Those who suffer from chronic
gastric diseases know it very well: at any change of season their
acid secretion grows; and as a consequence, also their disturbances
also grow, making it possible the risk of gastric ulcer. So, as this
transit approaches – I mean, already when Mars gets closer to the
cusp of the 6th House – you should ask your doctor to
prescribe you ranitidine or other similar compounds; stop drinking
coffee; stop taking any other substance that may hurt your stomach,
such as orange or lemon juice, spirits, and so on. Similarly, those
who suffer from cervical arthrosis would start going out wearing a
wooden scarf and a hat; sleeping with an electric heating-pad in
their pillow; adopting all those precautions that any patient like
them knows very well. In other words, you have to defend rather than
attack, for this is a really bad transit and if it happens together
with other bad transits, it may imply a very critical period for
you. So if you don’t want to become its victim, avoid the
underestimation of this transit and take all the required steps
against it. Above all, remember that during these weeks you’ll get
all the relapses of the troubles from which you suffer periodically.
Of course, if you have to undergo surgery, this is the time to do
so, always keeping in due consideration the general astrological
rules that refer to any operation; namely, that you shall not
undergo an operation when the Moon is in the sign connected with the
organ to be operated. Furthermore you should not forget that when
Mars passes through your 1st, 6th, or 12th House as well as in any other particularly negative situation, if
possible it is a good thing to observe a total, therapeutic fast. If
you cannot, a partial fast also may suit. Eat as little as possible
– a small cup of hot clear soup; a few chestnut to fill your
stomach; very little bread and cheese, or fresh fruit. Through total
fast or a frugal diet it is possible to overcome safely a good part
of the aggressions of Mars. This is also valid in general, so you
can follow this behavioural direction also in presence of other
‘malefic’ celestials.

Transit Mars in the
Seventh House

Unlike the previous
situation, here you have absolutely to attack: the harder you attack
the less you’ll be attacked. So you should do your best to develop
many little battles – or one single war, but be an important one.
This may or may not imply legal stuff, i.e. your war may also take
place before a court, but it may also have absolutely nothing to do
with lawyers, attorneys, or judges. For example you might pick up
the phone and call your neighbour to complain against his doggy
making poo-poo just before your own door. You may also join a
residents’ meeting and start fighting for your rights before each of
them. If somebody owes you money, you may also ask for legal
assistance to have your money back. And if you really think that
you’ve got nothing to quarrel with anybody (in which case I dare say
that you… live on Mars), you can always create or invent occasions
of battling: for example you may take part – at least during these
weeks – to actions of environmental activists, animal welfare, and
so on. Also having yourself enchained to the gates of the embassy of
a country in which experimental nuclear explosions are carried out
may be quite useful to discharge this transit. You may also invent
or hype a dispute with a newspaper or a magazine, by writing tons of
letters to them showing your indignation for one or another subject.
So join meetings, protest rallies, public debates, any sort of
popular happening. If you are so shy to be unable to speak in
public, you may always ask a legal representative to act for you.
The golden rule is: the more you produce war, the less damage you
suffer from this transit. Ironically, sports may help you. So join a
club and make karate or boxing. By giving kicks and punches to an
opponent – either for hunger or for sport – you’ll be able to
discharge this symbol partly or completely. In my experience I have
noticed that I have explained these things several times to those
who asked for my counselling, yet very few of them took me at my
word. An honest and respected professional, a very good man, did not
start any sort of battle or struggle or quarrel against anybody
during this transit. One day two young men waited for him before his
consulting room; when they saw him they simply asked for a
confirmation of his identity; then they assaulted him with kicks and
punches. The professional never understood who ordered them to do
so. Remember that during this transit you may have your driving
licence confiscated; you may undergo the control of a custom
officer; you may be interrogated by a judge; you may suffer from
little or serious legal troubles. So the only way, let me stress it
once again, is to invent wars, and attack, attack, and attack once
again. The more you attack the less you’ll be victim of attacks. In
this case, this rule proves true and works very well.

Transit Mars in the
Eighth House

Before anything else,
you have to administrate a series of controlled expenses. Since you
cannot avoid expenses during this transit, the idea of not spending
anything is not really advisable. It is much better starting with
anticipation, say when Mars is still in the 7th House:
then you should start scheduling your future expenses so that you
spend the money exactly when Mars is in the 8th House. In
other terms, it is really advisable to postpone, if possible, your
expenses when Mars is in the 6th and 7th
House, and then, when it enters the 8th House, you can
buy all the things you had programmed. This way you produce that
outgoing flow of money that this transit requires. Willing or not,
you’ll have to spend during this transit, so the clever action
consists in spending well. What you have to avoid and ban at any
cost is any sort of speculations and games. If you usually play, you
had better spend more money for your house or for a holiday rather
than wasting money in lotteries or bingos. In other words, if you
really wish to ward off the sinister blows that the celestials may
bring to you during this transit, you should learn to programme –
and to programme with due anticipation. If during the year you have
to have something fixed at home; if you have to buy some electrical
household appliance or a new car – you simply have to postpone the
event until Mars reaches your natal 8th House. In other
words, concentrate your expenses in those weeks or months. The same
applies if you have to pay certain bills, such as the dentist’s
bill, or the psychologist’s bill, or the bill for the lessons of
piano for your son. In a word: spend, spend and spend once again.
But – only spend for useful things, for things that you cannot
avoid. Furthermore, it is possible that during these months you may
have to face legal controversies in connection with disputed
inheritance or taxes, with the assistance of a lawyer or your
bookkeeper. If this didn’t happen in a natural way, but you judge
that it may happen, you had better provoke such a situation. At
another level, you may increase your sexual activity; considering
the symbols involved in this transit, this should happen quite
naturally.

Transit Mars in the
Ninth House

The time has arrived
for you to make that journey that you have postponed so far, because
you do not see it as a holiday. It may be a displacement for job,
for study or to undergo a therapy – so be strong and resolve to
leave at least. The longer and more tiring is the travel, the better
you discharge this Mars in the 9th House. According to
the notion of exorcism of symbols, the deal would be to go
very far away to undergo surgery, incision, perhaps an aesthetical
operation. I know people that don’t trust Italian dentists and they
travel periodically to Switzerland to be cured there; they also
claim to spend less then here in Italy. And this is exactly what you
should do in order to oppose safely this transit. On the other hand,
this transit usually takes place every second year and it would be a
little bit to wait for this transit to happen until your next visit
to a foreign dentist. So what you could do instead is covering a
distance of two-three hundred miles to run a particularly annoying
errand: for example, visiting some bureaucratic machine in the
capital. Or you may travel in order to visit and/or take care of a
relative who lives far away. Or you may resolve to take a plane and
struggle with the chief officer of your company in order to attain
better working conditions. The bottom line is that you should move
against your own will, or in order to perform actions that you
dislike. Mars in the 9th House might also be discharged
by going in for sports – yet in this case you had better beware of
possible accidents, so only go in for the least dangerous sports
such as swimming or gymnastic. At a mental level, the ideal would be
to learn a new language, or improving your skill in a language that
you already know. This may also refer to programming languages.
Hence you may also spend these weeks or months in learning how to
use and make profit from a new software package. It would also be a
wise thing to channel this particular sort of libido into the
so-called ‘superior’ studies, meaning in this case all the
disciplines that go far beyond your daily life: history of
religions, Eastern cultures, Zen, yoga, astrology, parapsychology,
esotericism, philosophy, analytic psychology and so on. And last,
also dealing much (or more than usual) with animals (possibly your
own pets) would also be useful to discharge this transit.

Transit Mars in the
Tenth House

Under this transit it’s
a matter of upgrading, i.e. enhancing your social and/or
professional position, or more generally speaking – achieving a
better emancipation. If you are a young woman you may insist and
have your boyfriend engage and eventually make arrangements for your
marriage; if you are a clerk you may relentlessly apply for better
positions; if you are a teenager you may ask your parents the
permission of going out with friends and coming back home later at
night. You may also engage a sort of competition with yourself as
well. So you may study harder; learn something new; get more expert
and proficient in your job; computerize your activity; produce more;
or enlarge the area in which your product is sold. In any case you’d
have to work harder for your prestige, particularly at a social and
professional level. For example you may pick up the phone and call
twenty different persons asking for their vote in a local election
in which you are a candidate. Only be careful not to mix up job or
prestige with money: they are two completely different worlds.
Cutting your umbilical cord may be another way of expressing the
spirit of the efforts required to you by this transit. You may get
rid of your chains also by quitting smoking; stopping and resolving
a long-lasting therapy of deep analysis; making efforts and channel
energies to stop taking a pill that you might consider unavoidable,
while it only causes you harm with its collateral effects. A good
way to exorcise Mars in your 10th House may also consist
in working until late. Do not forget that the natal 10th
House also refer to your mother; so if you wish to avoid quarrels
and troubles with her, you had better do your utmost for her during
this transit. For example go and visit her more often; take her to
the doctor; take her to the blood test; simply devote more time to
her. In other words, show her in practice how much you care; she who
has spent a whole life in making sacrifices for you deserves that
you make sacrifices for her form time to time.

Transit Mars in the
Eleventh House

It is very easy to
discharge this transit if you are a musician: simply play and play.
If you usually play much, well – play more then. If you don’t play
any instrument you may start learning, although it is clear that not
everyone can afford such an ambitious project, also considering that
this transit takes place every second year. So you must do something
else. The most logical thing to do during this transit is to deal
more with your friends; devote more time to them; spend energy for
them; give them your help and support; show them that friendship is
not merely a nice word for you. Since transits never arrive by
chance, you can be sure that during these months one of your friends
will surely need your help: so just give him (or her) a hand if you
only can. Otherwise, at the very least you should expect that this
transit will cause hostilities from your friends. Mars transiting in
the 11th House may also imply many efforts in making
projects, and this doesn’t mean wasting time in staring at the
infinite, lost in fancies. No, making projects means, for example,
taking steps to change your job; write and send resumes; preparing a
list of recipients to whom you’ll send the catalogue of your
products or services... At the same time you may also trying to
obtain the assistance or support or sponsor of important individuals
who might give you a hand. While Mars is in you 11th House you should knock at as many doors as possible. You have to
understand that those doors won’t open as easy as when Jupiter
passes through your 11th House; so you know that you’ll
have to knock stronger and louder, if you wish to achieve your
goals. Last but not least, you may also live this transit by making
practical efforts to make friends with new people; for example you
may volunteer in cleaning up the parks of your town, or join the Red
Cross, or Caritas.

Transit Mars in the
Twelfth House

This transit implies a
scenario similar to that of the passage through the 1st
and the 6th House. So you should behave keeping in mind
that you have to give as much as possible to the planet of war,
wounds, and troubles in general. The more you give of your own free
will, the less you run the risk of Mars choosing the brick falling
onto your head. Be clear that you may have this transit forty times
during your entire life, and not always happens anything serious.
But if this transit takes places together with other negative
transits of the slower planets such as Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and
Pluto – and if the whole scenario involves an overall negative
situation – then you really can run serious risks. So, in the
majority of cases you’ll simply have to do with less importance
events; nonetheless they might keep you concerned for weeks, and you
might be able to overcome or avoid them if you only succeeded in
discharging this transit well enough. As I always do in these cases,
once again I suggest you to be visited by a dentist or a surgeon:
more than anybody else, it’s them who might exorcise this transit at
best. On the other hand, you may not really need surgical help
during these few months. So if you really wish to act accordingly to
the symbol implied in this House, you should be hostile with your
‘pseudo-hidden’ enemies. I say ‘pseudo’ hidden ones, because if they
were really hidden you wouldn’t even know about them. No, I mean
those people who bury their head in the sand after having done
something evil against you, so that you can easily understand who
did it. Unlike their way of behaving, you had better act directly,
bravely and openly against them. In this period, facing directly
those who hate you may help discharge this transit. So speak aloud
if you need, and let them know that it is not your intention to
suffer passively any longer. At another level you may enhance your
concentration of strength and energy and channel them in esoteric
researches, or in search of anything that is – somehow and in the
broadest meaning of this term – hidden. For example, if you suspect
that your beloved one betrays you, this is the best moment to
investigate: you may do it yourself or charge a private eye who will
be able to do it more professionally by placing electronic bugs or
shadowing your partner. If you belong to that group of people who
love helping the mankind, you might also join associations of
volunteers who give assistance to those in the need.